


neither sorrow, nor crying,

by marschallin



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: 19th century surgery is gory, Canon Era, Child Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 15:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17511230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marschallin/pseuds/marschallin
Summary: Enjolras comforts Combeferre after a difficult day at the Necker.





	neither sorrow, nor crying,

“There’s a little tube of flesh that extends from the large intestine, about the size of your thumb; it is called the appendix.” He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers; his imagination, Enjolras knew, was already deep inside the crevices of the human body. “If perforated, the appendix may become infected and then poison the rest of the body. It is exceedingly uncomfortable…. Nausea, vomiting, then severe abdominal cramps, fever…” He counted out the symptoms on his fingers. “The pain becomes unbearable before death. There is no cure.”

They sat side by side on Combeferre’s bed, still dressed and oddly formal; Enjolras had only just felt comfortable enough to remove his boots, so suffocating was the funereal atmosphere.

“It must be distressing witness a child suffer so,” Enjolras said gently. He reached out and pressed a finger against Combeferre’s knuckles, and watched, with some satisfaction, as his hand untensed. 

Combeferre continued, somewhat calmer. “Nearly a hundred years ago, a surgeon, a French surgeon actually, managed to remove a boy’s appendix in London. The boy made a full recovery. No similar operations have been successful, or I have not been able to find record of them.”

Enjolras could see, under the heavy curtain of melancholy, a spark of brightness. It was that same brightness that shone when Combeferre discussed the steam-powered locomotives puffing away in Manchester, or Mister Thomas Wedgewood’s light paintings. It was an immense question mark, buzzing with excitement under a plain and respectable countenance. It said:  _ Why shouldn’t this be possible? And why shouldn’t I be the one to try it?  _

“But all the same, you want to operate.” It was clear as the nose on Combeferre’s face; he wanted to try, and Enjolras felt a burst of affection for his friend’s limitless optimism. 

And just like that, the spark disappeared and Combeferre looked more depressed than ever. 

“I  _ did _ operate. The child died under my knife, as expected. I had hoped otherwise of course, or at least that I might learn something from the experience. I did not. As suspected, the appendix was ruptured; her abdominal cavity was full of pus. She would have lived hours longer, if she was lucky.” He swallowed hard and Enjolras threaded their fingers together and tried to keep his face steady even as the gruesome phrase echoed in his head. 

“You took those few hours from her,” Enjolras said quietly. It was not a judgement; it was a mirror of what Enjolras knew Combeferre was thinking. Combeferre, who believed in the possibility of the appendix, also held stock in deathbed confessions and visions of angels carrying souls away. 

“She would have been drugged to oblivion. Instead, she was awake, hemorrhaging, screaming for her mother.” His voice broke. He turned and stared defiantly at an ugly watercolor nailed to the opposing wall. A gift from Jean Prouvaire. Sunrise over the Rhine, though so poorly rendered that you could see whatever you liked in the splashes of blue and orange. Perhaps Combeferre saw the dead child, convulsing under his hand. Enjolras tightened his grip.

“You gave her a chance,” Enjolras said gently. Combeferre had begun to tap his foot against the headboard to a tune he could not make out.

“It was roughly the same chance of flying across the Atlantic. No, I know myself too well. It was vain ambition and pride, thinking I might…. Well, it’s over now. Joly is furious with me. I’m furious with me. Please Enjolras, do not think that I am asking for comfort.. I have tortured and murdered a little girl; I deserve none of your sympathy.” 

“Perhaps not,” said Enjolras. “But you have it anyway.”

They sat in silence. Enjolras examined Combeferre’s hand, the ink splatter on his thumb, the carefully filed nails, the half-healed blister on his palm from a clumsily handled cigar. He tried to imagine that hand, large and long-fingered, holding skin taut as the other clutched a knife. He had watched Combeferre stitch up their friends, root around in limbs for stray grapeshot; it never ceased to surprise him what a bloody business it was, and how brutal Combeferre could be as he ordered Joly to hold the patient still, to gag their screams on a spare handkerchief. And yet, when the operation was complete, it was as if Combeferre himself had been exorcised and healed; he became gentle again; he enjoyed playing nursemaid and fetching cool compresses and fussing over bandages.

Enjolras loved Combeferre in all his multitude of forms and yet he did not understand all of them, nor was he sure that he wanted to. Part of him, when he was very tired or ill or overwhelmed with living, wished for a world where Combeferre the surgeon was set aside and there was only Combeferre the philosopher, the naturalist, the botanist, the engineer, the theatre enthusiast. And yet, a Combeferre without that slice of coldness, that doctor’s objectivity, would not be Combeferre, late riser and stealer of blankets. 

“You are an excellent surgeon,” Enjolras said slowly, bringing the hand up to kiss along the knuckles, the palm, the blue veins showing through the wrist. “And though I believe you view your own motivations in the worst possible light, I share your distress. You cannot help your patient by making yourself unhappy. Remember her  as an example of the dangers of misplaced enthusiasm, and strive to do better. That is all.”

Combeferre’s lower lip twitched and he pulled his hand away, cradling it to his chest. “I am not like you, Enjolras,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I cannot will myself to be happy or unhappy. Yes, you are reasonable, but guilt doesn’t obey reason.” 

It took some self control not to mention that he was as much a man as Combeferre, that he too was prone to uncontrollable moods and fancies, that he knew the guilt of a murderer as intimately as any surgeon. Just as Combeferre could announce, without emotion, that a wounded quarry worker needed an immediate amputation if he was to live, Enjolras could push away the memories of Combeferre, blood-drenched and cruel.  _ We are all blinded by ourselves,  _ he wanted to say. Instead, he put a hand on each side of Combeferre’s jaw and kissed his cheek, stubbly and smelling of sweat. 

“Well,” said Enjolras, pulling Combeferre closer so that their temples brushed against one another, their hair mingling, gold and ruddy brown. “Then at least let me comfort you while you are unhappy.”

This time there was no question of deserving or not deserving; Combeferre allowed himself to be maneuvered onto Enjolras’s chest and a threadbare quilt flung over his back. He relaxed his hands and began to stroke at Enjolras’s forearm, an attempt at mutual comfort that made Enjolras’s chest feel very warm. There was Combeferre the murderer and Combeferre who liked to be held, all mixed up in one fragile human body. Enjolras wondered if he was himself so complex or if Combeferre were special, as he knew him to be in every other way. 

“I wish,” said Enjolras in a low voice, “that progress could be had without bloodshed, for your sake. Or that the path to progress was clearly marked so that such choices would not weigh so on your conscience; but there is no natural law that says ‘do this and usher in a utopia’ or ‘do this and save your patient,’ We are both trying to find our way to a better world, and it is inevitable that we will make wrong turns now and again.” 

“Yes, but the good must be innocent.” How often had he said those words, chiding, at Bahorel or Feuilly or Enjolras himself? And yet it never sounded rehearsed; it had the cadence of a prayer. Combeferre shifted slightly to remove his spectacles, fold them neatly, and place them on the bedside table. He looked much older without them. 

“The good must be innocent,” he repeated.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> the title is from revelations, chapter 21: _And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away._
> 
> there was no standard surgical treatment (or any treatment tbh) for appendicitis until the 1880s. before germ theory (and after tbh) any sort of abdominal surgery was extremely risky, and outcomes were extremely poor.


End file.
